James Brown groaned of a furious revenge for having money stolen in his track, "The Payback." The Godfather of Soul, who also sang about losing his girl, insisted that "payback is a thing you gotta see." We'll happily harmonize with his groans of displeasure for money lost, but it's hard to recommend anyone seeing Soldier of Fortune: Payback. Pretty graphics are the only thing keeping this game from being a total waste. Predictable enemies, lackluster levels, and the abandonment of the series' core elements leave us singing our complaints along with the hardest working man in show business.
Payback lays out a short single player campaign consisting of approximately a dozen missions played from the perspective of modern mercenary Thomas Mason. It's a straightforward hunt for terrorists involving guns, guns, and more guns (some grenades too). Multiplayer for up to 12 jives well with the game's breed of shoot-first-ask-questions-later gunplay. The campaign is largely forgettable, leaving multiplayer to pick up a lot of slack. Four game types--deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and elimination--offer only the most basic of matches. That would be forgivable if Payback included a bunch of fantastically design maps; on the contrary, there's but a handful hardly engendering mediocrity. No bad, yet far from stellar--the multiplayer doesn't do anything better than any other shooter and as such fails to evoke any excitement.
Essentially the only remarkable quality Payback possesses is its graphics. Surprisingly vivid, detailed visuals contribute to an outstanding presentation. The environments, which range from a dilapidated Middle Eastern city to the jungles of Asia to a weapons facility in Russia, possess an inordinate amount of detail and gorgeous lighting effects. Clearly a lot of effort was invested in the graphics--more than can be said of its gameplay.
Enemy intelligence is wholly lacking, limited to predictable scripted behaviors. Enter an area and enemies rush in to take their designated positions, standing firm behind a car or other form of partial cover. Rarely do they venture beyond a few feet of this set spot, even when under threat of death. When their feet aren't cemented to the ground, enemies will less frequently rush toward you in the open without firing. This is great because their stupidity gives you a clear shot. There's no sense of self-preservation among your enemies and certainly no concept of tactical engagement. The impact this has on combat can't be understated: the lack of intelligence lends a hollow, shooting gallery feel. To be certain, it fails to instill any sophistication in its combat and falls flat in comparison to competing shooters.
Contributing to the underwhelming nature of combat is the surprising lack of gore. Soldier of Fortune games have established themselves as provocative shooters that toy with fleshy dismemberment. These technically still occur in Payback, but you're unlikely to ever see them up close. Honestly, unlocking one of the game's dismemberment achievements was a surprise since it wasn't even apparent that enemies were being cut up. Shots from afar translate to a small splash of red; never do you get a glimpse of a body part being blown apart. Getting a look at an enemy's arm being blown off requires being face-to-face with your foe, which is something that the game discourages. After all, being within point blank range of an enemy is likely to get you killed.
A cinematic zoom or some other clever feature highlighting successful dismemberment would have done much to capture the spirit of the series and distinguish the game as more than just another terrorist crackdown. It seems clear that pressure to limit virtual violence led to a toning down of the game's level of gore. A red banner on the back of the box warning of "violent subject matter" acknowledges Payback as a victim of commercial censorship. In order to appease consumers scared of the unsubstantiated effects of simulated violence, Activision willingly put a limit on one of the series' defining elements. As a result, the game suffers and ends up being nothing more than a substandard shooter.
A limitation on its gore isn’t the sole reason why Payback fails as a shooter; instead, it's one of many factors that contributes to the game's lackluster quality. There is essentially nothing that distinguishes the game as unique or worthwhile amid a crowded genre. A hackneyed premise that flirts with the same issues of terrorism examined in scores of other shooters hardly makes an impact here. Borrowed locales do little to differentiate the game either. Even the action, which leans far too much on the formula laid out by the Call of Duty series, fails to make a mark. Perhaps a cheaper price would warrant interest, but a full retail tag puts it in contention with other, much better games. Why spend money on a cookie-cutter game when the same cash can be applied to a title on the front end of the genre? The answer is so obvious; we'll leave you to yourself to ponder it.
